Yesterday, I mentioned the two reels of famous “Kinemacolor pictures” that were part of the new Empress Theatre’s vaudeville program in 1913. When movies were first introduced, they appeared as an act, one of many on the vaudeville stage. However, a shift occurs in the theatre industry, slowly nudging moving pictures to the forefront of popular entertainment on stage. This had a major affect on the construction of other entertainment venues, subsequently decreasing the demand for painted scenery. In a sense, the appearance of Kinemacolor Theaters albeit short lived signally the beginning to the end for Sosman & Landis and other firms founded on the production of painted illusion. I am going to explore the construction of Kinemacolor theaters today.
Kinemacolor was advertised as “the perfection of animated photography.” It is noted as the most successful of the so called “natural color processes” in early cinema, using an additive process operated with alternating red and green filters that were applied to the shutter in front of the camera and in front of the projector. Popularized by George Albert Smith and Charles Urban. Kinemacolor flourished in theaters during the decade before WWI. The principle of recording color separations with revolving shutter filters was not invented by Urban. German Hermann Isensee is credited as one of the individuals who first experimented with the process during the 1890s. By 1899, Frederick Marshall Lee and Edward Raymond Turner patented an early version of the system.
In short, the three-color records (wheels) used by Lee and Edward proved to be impractical, and yet the earlier two-color system failed to produce the entire color spectrum; blue to violet hues and whites had a yellowing tinge. It was Smith who proposed adding blue-violet filters to the projection light for a more satisfying result. As I was reading about the various filters, it was hard not to think of the red/green/white border lights that were installed in some Scottish Rite theaters during this same time period (see past posts, as I have addressed the lighting approach).
The popularity of the short films resulted in the construction of Kinemacolor theaters. On Oct. 9, 1911, the “Courier-News” reported the Historic Mendelssohn Hall was leased to the Kinemacolor Company of America as a permanent home for the colored motion pictures in New York and renamed the Kinemacolor Theatre (Bridgewater, NJ, page 3). The article noted, “Kinemacolor Theatre will be unique, and to New York what the Scala Theatre, with a similar exhibition, is to London. Abroad Kinemacolor has become the rage of Royalty, and on average of once a fortnight their majesties King George and Queen Mary visit the Scala, and as well have a private exhibition set for the children of the Royal family. For the first time in New York the complete series of Coronation pictures will be present for a limited engagement at the Kinemacolor Theatre, which opens its doors on Saturday evening.”
That same year, a Kinemacolor theater also on the west coast of the United States. Tally’s Broadway was in Los Angeles soon featured the new color films and was briefly renamed the Kinemacolor Theatre.
The Island Amusement Company in 1913 constructed another Kinemacolor Theatre in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. On February 20, 1912, the “Vancouver Sun” reported “As its name implies the Kinemacolor theatre will feature the famous colored motion pictures prepared under the Kinemacolor system, but it will also present a musical programme including an orchestra of nine pieces under the direction of Mr. Joseph Kos and noted soloists brought here at considerable expense and changed twice weekly. Each day’s performance will be continuous from 12 noon to 11 o’clock at night. There will be seven numbers in the night bill occupying upwards of an hour and a quarter for consecutive presentation. The night charges will be 25 cents to the lower floor and 15 cents to the balcony, while for the benefit of children and their parents the charge of all parts of the house form noon to 6 p.m. will be only 10 cents” (page 7).
By the summer of 1913, newspaper headlines boasted, “Kinemacolor Breaks Film Speed Record.” The “News-Herald” of Franklin, Pennsylvania, reported “The Kinemacolor broke all records for quick motion picture reporting the day the Impersonator docked by exhibiting the pictures a little over six hours after arrival. It is the first time that natural color photographs have been taken, developed, printed and exhibited with such speed and satisfactory results” (28 June 1913, page 7). Film footage taken at noon was shown in the Kinemacolor exhibition theatre by 6 p.m. that evening. All seemed to be on the upswing, but the demand for new films outpaced those who produced and processed them. At the time, the model was unsustainable to deliver new subjects to the Kinemacolor Theaters. The novelty wore off.
On October 21, 1913, the “Victoria Daily Times” reported “Kinemacolor Closed Up. Victoria’s Newest Theatre Proved Unprofitable Venture and Policy Will Be Changed” (21 Oct, 1913, page 17). The article continued, “The colored pictures never proved a great attraction in any part of Canada and the company behind the films has been reported in difficulties in some months past.” By 1915, the venue reopened at the Colonial Theatre.
Widescreenmuseum.com explains one of the flaws to Kinemacolor (http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/kinemaco.htm), “Like all sequential color processes, Kinemacolor suffered from color fringing when objects moved, since the two color records were not recorded at the same time. In projection, a filter wheel, similar to that in the camera, added the red and green tints to the successive frames. Many color processes used this approach and all suffered from fringing on moving objects, dark images, and untold grief if the film was not loaded in the projector in appropriate sync with the color wheel. None of the two-color processes could reproduce blue or pure white, but various tricks were used to fool the eye into thinking it was seeing a neutral white…Kinemacolor was quite successful in Europe and promised to grow and improve. However, two events ultimately killed the company. First, William Friese-Greene sued for patent violation. Friese-Greene claimed to have invented virtually everything relating to motion pictures but he lost his suit through all the lower courts in England. He finally did win when he appealed the lower court decisions to the House of Lords. This didn’t get Friese-Greene anything but it did open up the Kinemacolor technology so that anyone could take advantage of it. The second event was World War I, which nearly destroyed all the European film companies. By the time Europe started to make a comeback Kinemacolor was nearly defunct and Technicolor in Boston, Massachusetts had taken the lead in producing a workable color process.”
To be continued…
